£20,000 Whisky Review

What A £20,000 Whisky Tastes Like (To Someone Who Knows Nothing About Whisky)

whisky, noun. An alcoholic liquor distilled from a fermented mash of grain, as barley, rye, or corn, and usually containing from 43 to 50 percent alcohol – (Source: Dictionary.com)

At this point, alarm bells should be going off in your head. The old ‘dictionary definition’ opener, as teachers, readers and panicked 3am-essay-cobbling-students know, is the clearest way for a writer to signal that they know nothing about their subject.

And I know nothing about my subject. I want you to know this, in case you love, like, or have any kind of empathy for the craftsmanship that goes into fine whisky. I get how ridiculous it is when an ignoramus stumbles upon something you’re passionate about and then calls it “shit” because they don’t understand it. I laughed and sneered at Gareth Gates when he called Young Fathers “shit”, because I get Young Fathers and Gareth Gates doesn’t. The thing is, I’m about to go full Gareth on the subject of whisky myself.

On the day of the tasting, I’m picked up by a car and driven to a grand 5-star hotel in central London. In an intimate, gilt-edged bar filled with plush furnishings and a small group of journalists, I meet Master Distiller Alan Winchester whose name has inspired the whisky in question: The Glenlivet Winchester collection Vintage 1966.

Alan is the perfect ambassador for whisky. First of all, he is Scottish. Second of all, he knows a lot about whisky. Third of all, if you were sat in a stone-walled pub in the Hebrides, and lovely Alan Winchester asked if you wanted to pop open a bottle of whisky in front of a roaring fire, trust me, you would say yes.

Before we go straight for the big guns, we taste a more widely available version of Glenlivet for comparison. It’s OK! I can taste honey, coffee (which is actually treacle) and, um, alcohol (always say what you see). Between Alan and a few other appreciators, I can tell there’s a genuine love for whisky in the room and that writing an article about whisky from the point of view of someone who knows nothing about it would be a bit of an arse move (as well as needing some substantial padding out...).

Then they bring out the £20,000 Vintage 1966 itself, which is decked out with its very own cherry wood cabinet, a smoky quartz stone-set stopper and a glass blown bottle. Poured into a tumbler, it’s a lot darker than the previous Glenlivet – mahogany brown with a tinge of gold, rather than liquid honey. Also, it’s strong on the alcohol front and holding it up to my nose and swirling it like I actually know what I’m doing makes my eyes water.

There’s a slight awkwardness as no one wants to be the first one to start drinking, because it’s hard to be comfortable around this much money unless you’re Donald Trump. But when Alan tells us to go for it, we tentatively take a sip.

I feel like a kid opening an underwhelming present in front of my well-meaning parents – and then struggling to smile while I gulp down their 48% alcohol infused gift. I’m told that the Vintage 1966 is smoky and bitter with a sweetness that comes from treacle and fruit, and is layered with spices. I notice this but only in the way someone notices Animal Farm is an allegory for the Russian Revolution after they’re told.

The expectation, of course, is to be blown away by the Vintage 1966. But after 50 years of maturation in Spanish oak casks, it has a distinctive, long-lasting taste and my instant reaction is to gag.

I’m annoyed by this. When something has been so hyped and enjoyed so passionately by people with good taste, it feels like you’re the one at fault if you can’t join in: When you get bored by J.R.R. Tolkien, when you’re repulsed by Quentin Tarantino, when you don't find Broad City funny…

At this point you’d be forgiven for thinking my opinions are irrelevant and that I’m not to be trusted. But if you're going to attach a price tag of £20,000 to a bottle of spirit, you’ve basically flung open the doors to scrutiny. Yes, quality and hard work should be reflected in the price, but at some point the amount of money something can reasonably be worth has to plateau.

What I’m saying is, if a whisky – which, as we all know is comprised of a fermented mash of grain, barley, rye, or corn and contains 43 to 50 percent alcohol – is going to justify costing £20,000, it has to be more than just a fermented mash of grain, barley, rye or corn, containing 43 to 50 percent alcohol.

It should cost £20,000 including a trip to Bali on a private jet. It should cost £20,000 plus you’ve cleared your student debts. It should cost £20,000, which coincidentally comprises a not insignificant proportion of a certain men’s lifestyle journalist’s salary, to whom the whisky makers decide to charitably contribute the proceeds.

When I ask Alan how they arrived at £20,000, I like that he says “I would sell it for £20 a bottle” because I can totally imagine him enjoying one of these around the aforementioned roaring fire with his mates. But I get that the Vintage 1966 has been stewing for 50 years, so if you wanted to bump the price up to say *assigns random value* £1000, I guess that would be fine.

So the obvious moral of the story is, if you can’t tell your whisky arse from your whisky elbow, you won’t be able to appreciate this. Also, that any honest review of a ridiculously expensive product written by a twenty-something in this day and age will be met with a degree of Millennial angst. And that at the end of the day, no one should be going round thinking they're better than, um, Gareth Gates.